Apple HomeView

The weird thing about this product is that its biggest competitor is "an old ipad." I feel like most of their target customer base already has an old ipad that's better suited for what this does in every way. Old ipads:

1. Have a battery so you're not tied to a cord. Even old poor batteries are better than no battery.

2. Have apps! How does this not support apps?!

3. Have a huge range of 3rd party products and hacks and 3D models to wall mount it or stands for it

4. Are kitchen-safe (splatter proof, far fewer holes than this product, movable out of the way)

5. Also support siri and facetime and everything this device does AFAICT

I'm guessing they realized this and made sure it's priced lower than the cheapest new iPad, but it will be interesting to see if the price difference can compete with the old iPads most of their customers have in drawers or already on walls.

Maybe the purpose-built nature will be a reasonable enough differentiator, but I'm not sure it's focused enough for that. It's both a passive information station and for calls? It's for recipes which implies you put it in the kitchen, but it looks like a nightmare to clean with all those holes? It's also a very small screen when you have to read the recipe from a distance because it has no battery. I can't move my stove to it, and I definitely don't want it too near a stove or sink!

The multiple users feature is a really neat trick, but I would kill to have this for all Apple devices. Let me hand my kid my phone and it automatically switches to kid mode!

Please Apple don't lock multiple users to stationary devices like HomeView!

> Secure Exclaves. The A18 chip inside HomeView contains Secure Exclaves that process the camera and microphone feeds in a secure compartment that cannot be accessed by the operating system or by Apple. This enables HomeView to recognize the face and voice of each user without exposing the audio and visual data used for recognition to the operating system.

This is interesting!

The overwhelming cynicism about this product I'm seeing here on HN tells me it's going to be a hit.

Props to Apple for making this. Always cool to see them try stuff. That said:

I watched their video demo with the family getting ready in the morning: there are some interesting ideas here but imo if this doesn't get reasonably full access to the App Store then it's a no-go for me. Like: FaceTime while cooking, sure, but those calls tend to happen on Messenger and Snapchat for us. Music in the kitchen, sure, but I run Plexamp. My kids are always stealing my iPad to run the Toybox 3D printer; this would be a great thing for them to use.

And so on.

My house has a bunch of spots on the wall where an old intercom system used to live: it'd obviously be a budget buster to buy a bunch of these to fit in those slots but even if you did, you'd need Apple to provide an intercom solution (a la the Watch's Walkie-Talkie?) or you're...out of luck.

Through the incredible power of Siri AI™, you can now get a "I didn't understand that. Do you want to search the web for 'turn on the kitchen lights'?" response faster than ever before.

Separating the camera and microphone data processing functionality into a Secure Exclave should be seen as a genuinely important step forward to protecting privacy, not just implementing data control schemes which masquerade under the name of "privacy." This approach should be the norm moving forward, as cameras and microphones provide the biggest issues for privacy.

With this established, it becomes possible to envision a Secure Exclave which handles data from _all_ device sensors, not just cameras and microphones. The Secure Exclave will contain all sensor data processing functions, which will feed the information to the OS. With the processing capabilities of sensor data being unalterable by any web-connected actor, and by building a physical interface for processing capability updating, unwelcome perception becomes impossible, thereby solving the privacy problem.

I can't believe they haven't redesigned the Home app interface! I've always thought it was pretty terrible UX-wise and looked like they just threw together a very basic UI to have some support for home automation. I always expected they'd get around to formulating an actual design perspective for what a good-looking smart home control interface may look like, and this seemed like a perfect opportunity for that. I guess not.

That being said, I still think this is cool, and I'm glad Apple's spending more effort in this area. I won't replace my custom HA dashboard with it at this point, but may get my parents one.

> Apple HomeView is not available for sale in the European Union, as Siri AI is currently unavailable in iOS in the EU. Apple is working constructively with the EU in an attempt to find a path forward.

It's interesting that they consider that this product would be unusable without Siri AI. I've used a Google Nest Hub for years, and I don't think it needs AI to be useful?

Looks nice, unfortunately I'll have to stick with however Google's alternative is currently called since Google Cast is the strictly better model for these types of devices in my view, compared to Airplay.

Google Cast runs the player on the cast target and only uses the device that initiates playback as an optional remote control that can be disconnected without interrupting streaming.

Airplay requires the controlling device to remain available throughout, in my experience; receiving a phone call, watching other media etc. on my phone isn't possible without interrupting playback. (This might have changed in one of the last versions, but that needs app support, and not knowing what to expect on a per app basis is at least as bad, if not worse.)

It's not even a very functional size. Honestly makes me go why not just get a phone charging mount by my HomePod in the kitchen and save $300. Plus add on a mount and charger and it's $400. No thanks

This is a nice design, and a very aggressive price. I like the design enough I'm interpreting that price as a sign Apple's serious about getting these into a lot of homes.. I wasn't thinking I'd buy one of these, but I changed my mind looking at the pitch -- at this price it's sort of a 'hmm, I could imagine wanting one of those in X room'.

I'm curious if this is intended to act as a matter hub -- right now a lot of that load is shouldered by an Apple TV 4K if you've got one. Anyway, apple's home automation story has been terrible for ten years, but this device makes me think they will make another serious run in the next five.

Feels like the wrong approach. Why not just create a docking station for the iPad and a software docking view? Identical to Google's approach with the Pixel Tablet but Apple's superior will be more refined. It even uses the A18 SoC!

At $299 this feels like a very niche product with limited functionality.

Nice very Apple-esque thrust to unify and refine a chaotic field of tech into an elegant experience.

I cannot fathom how this will deliver on the vision when Siri, even the new gemini-under-the-hood Siri, is still maddeningly, bafflingly worthless. To be fair, Gemini, for a consumer of the google ecosystem, is also maddeningly, bafflingly worthless. So we use ChatGPT or Claude, with extremely limited access to the tiny little shortcuts that stack up and make absolute magic for the personal AI assistant.

The product ad (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hkrYiZ_g9tw) is amazing, honestly, and I can't think of any other brand that has this kind of "feeling". Most other just copy this style, like Google or Microsoft, but they just don't have the "coolness". And I am not saying Apple is the ultimate cool, just that from all big tech, they're consistently the best of them.

I don’t really understand why we need this. Why another screen? iPhones, iPads, Mac’s and now another one for the kitchen.

How does the wallmount work? It's powered by a USB C port on the back, is there even a wiring standard for in-wall 20W USB? It would need something like this to function on an existing PoE network. https://store.ui.com/us/en/products/uacc-adapter-poe-usbc but it only goes up to 10W. Can it even use the wired networking half of such a setup?

> Private for all

Literally the first thing that I thought opening this was: “oh great even more spyware in my home” haha. Sure, let’s mount every centimetre with cameras and smart TVs. Even if we buy the premise that there’s no bad intentions, negligence, incompetence and malignant actors can use every iot device as another vector to bug you…

It's shocking to me it doesn't support apps from the AppStore nor any kind of (video) media streaming.

Otherwise looks like an ideal kitchen TV/Movie playback device.

I’ve had one Echo device or multiple around the house since they launched. several years ago I whittled it down to one Echo Show in the kitchen. I like the screen just being there on the counter with timers and easily visible. I can finally retire this ad machine and be Alexa free.

I stopped using the smart home features of echo since it was too cumbersome to go in and readjust all devices for use by one thing or troubleshooting when there was problems. HomeKit is visible across 20 devices used by a family of 5 and made sense to expose all my devices through it.

I just vibe coded the UI and backend services for a 10 inch, soon to be wall mounted, raspberry pi panel integrated with HomeSeer and UniFi. It switches to the door camera automatically when motion is detected. I added a status screen with important items such as state of door locks, washer, dryer, dishwasher and litter boxes. Very bespoke to my house and family. I will have to see what the ongoing cost of maintenance is of my panel vs HomeView device.

This product seems great to me and my needs. Yes, I can do the same with an e-ink display, linux, claude subscription, and time. But I won't. I would much rather buy a product with minimal setup out of the box. I hope this can become my houses' stationary "land line phone".

Documentation lists integrations with "select partners" -- and that's why this isn't a serious play for the home. You need to work with everything, like HomeAssistant, Control4, etc. to be a serious contender. They have had years to do this, could have got it all lined up with HomeKit + existing iOS devices. People aren't going to rip out their security system just to integrate with your device. But that would require having a non-adversarial relationship with your developer ecosystem. It's frustrating because home integration software is a wasteland. Those that have succeeded in it have understood it's an ecosystem game.

I kind of like the idea of this for a home phone replacement and a good way for our family to communicate as we get more comfortable with leaving the kids home alone. But it won’t be able to call 911 and I do not trust it.

Makes me even happier I just installed a red wall phone with an armored cable and signed up for ooma’s cheap plan. 911 access and we have no need for whitelisting. Always have outgoing and default to ringer off. Can turn it on (satisfying slider) if we are leaving the kids for a bit and they can have fun hanging up on any spam while we are out.

The thing on the stand is goofy, partly because it's like a large Apple Watch. Especially goofy when it's pictured with a hand, and it isn't actually all that big. But their wall mounted design looks interesting, kind of for the same reason? Aesthetically it immediately makes me think of a wall clock, which tells me exactly where it belongs. I kind of feel like they should lead with that one. (Although maybe they should be honest that it obviously needs a power cable).

Wonder what the real use cases for this are. How often does this get used once the novelty wears off? If they have to resort to “find me a restaurant “ as part of the launch demo, I don’t have a lot of hope for it.

I know Apple will get the security right, no question. So I would use it but not sure it’s worth it. I don’t see a compelling use case personally

The display is small for what it is.

The price is on par with the Amazon Echo Show devices[0]. Why anyone would shell out $300 buck for an Alexa with a screen is beyond me. With the appleHome, at least you can dump your phone and check in on things (not that I would do that either).

In conclusion, it doesn't seem like there's a huge apple premium on this device. Maybe the move is to cut into competing devices with the apple umbrella.

P.S. It would be dope if the display would follow you around in certain situations. Say you're cooking and moving left and right on the counter. With a fixed display, i would keep walking over to look at it, rather than an angle. Moving around the kitchen and looking up to see the thing you need would be dope. (not that I would use that either). But it would be the kind of polish that people dump cash on.

Apple is pretty late to the smart display market. We have had these devices around for almost a decade now.

  - Echo Show: 2017
  - Nest Hub: 2018
  - HomeView: 2026

The only viable use-case I see for it is having one in every room of the house playing the Godfather part 1, 24/7 in a loop.

Hmm. I'm currently looking to update my Alexa echo dot combined with a wall-mounted iPad connected to my Home Assistant instance. I don't really know if this thing is what I should get instead of waiting for a Home Pod update and using that for voice with my existing iPad display. Maybe it could be useful as a condensed UI for some important Home Assistant entities I link into HomeKit? Can it be powered through PoE which I already have set up for the iPad? (edit: yes, looks like a PoE adapter is coming for $130). But if I get the non-wall mounted version I can replace my bluetooth speaker for music. I just hope it supports more than just core Apple apps because I don't really use those. For $299 I might just pick it up for fun and see how it works for me (edit: I pre-ordered the regular non-wall mounted one)

Anything powered by Siri is pretty much a failed product to me right now. I’ve been using the new Siri for a while, and it’s okay, but it still fails on most of my requests.

Maybe it’s my accent? But ChatGPT and Claude have no trouble understanding what I’m saying, so I’m not sure what the issue is.

I saw some discussion about potentially being able to use ChatGPT or Claude as Siri’s backend instead of Apple Intelligence. That would be much more interesting to me.

Really like this, will get one

One annoyance that I anticipate though: can we have a "separate identity" for these 'home devices' ?

[note: this is not a concern if you live alone]

I.e. when used in a family environment, you have to pick one person's identity as the 'main' identity ... but we'd rather have a 'home' person with whom we share stuff, whom we add on calendars etc, and then view THAT info on the home devices.

This sidesteps the whole "WHOSE calendar/reminders are showing" issue.

This is a problem on the homepod, and will only be exacerbated on the HomeView.

Or ... how do other folks solve this?

They just ran out of ideas, or just looking for more ways to squeeze some money. What's wrong with an iPad??

I have no need at all for a device like this, but I love the iMac G4 vibes. That was probably my favorite Mac of all time--the screen, which was mounted on an arm of the future that was anchored by the round base that housed DVD drive, moved so smoothly that you could adjust the display with your pinky.

For a moment I thought I clicked on a parody web site.

I wonder if someone can just vibecode an app for iPad mini to do the same things as HomeView and just mount it on the wall or have a 3D printed stand for it.

Also the most unrealistic part about the intro video by apple for this was that not a single person in the kitchen was on their phone and was waiting their turn to use this thing. Do iPhones doesn't exists on the universe where they filmed that ad?

A lot of people in the "just use an iPad" camp seem to not understand that this has enough speaker to actually fill a room with other noises going on. I'm not trying to listen to music blasted from an iPad while I'm cooking.

So these are cool, especially for families and grandparents, but I think it may be a much better experience for fully Apple families.

Like can you do video calling with Google Meet with one of these? Probably not.

It pulls in CarPlay apps, but I’m sure not Android Auto.

That being said, I think this is a smart play and helps Apple ensure the “Apple Experience.”

My take is they should sell these at a loss for a while as it makes their ecosystem more sticky and also viral.

In order to use one properly you basically have to have an iPhone, and so people who buy these will never move to Android, and everyone in their household benefits from the integrations.

Something like this was coming. Apple has the best distribution to put devices in someone's home, which allows them to capture the "SmartHome 2.0" wave from AI. Especially when people's calendars, communications, and contacts are already integrated

TBH the biggest tell was when they started doing fingerprinting for "Hey Siri", so they can make mutli-user devices that can tell apple accounts apart.

Even in their cherry-picked examples on their site, Apple's Liquid Glass design language renders some of the text illegible.

It doesn't help that this only gets up to 500 nits...

> comfortable viewing in any light. Brightness ranges from 500 nits for sunny rooms to our lowest-ever 0.3 nits for the bedside

If it auto-rotated to face the person speaking, that would make it much more useful. Having to manually move the thing around (especially in the kitchen, where your hands are likely to be dirty) doesn't seem great.

I dunno. That's what an Ipad is for? Also, this push into home automation. I don't want some 4T lb gorilla in that space. That should remain as open as possible and Apple just isn't known for open.

Apple is literally cooking for non tech savvy seniors it seems. More or less a locked down foolproof iPad on a stand.

So is this 1984 (surveillance) or Brave New World (distraction)?

I love the callout to the classic lampshade Mac. I would love them to bring that back one day. I use one as a music machine -- driving the classic clear acrylic Harmon Kardon column speakers, essentially using a machine I could never had had back in 2004.

Most interesting part to me here is that the announcement notes that the A18 has "Secure Enclaves". Is this the first "plural" use of Secure Enclave? Is it needed for multi-user?

So it’s an iPhone but it’s stuck to your kitchen table? Where everyone at the table has an iPhone?

I suspect that this hardware is highly subsidized. Apple needs to quickly push AI (Apple Intelligence) and leapfrog SI (/s). It's unlike Apple to release a product like this so cheap. They're planning to make money through future AI services.

I can't put my finger on why exactly, but HomeView, iphone duo, and vision pro all seem like areas where apple could've innovated further, but didn't, and end up looking the same as existing hardware with apple software being the differentiator. Maybe other companies just started making hardware the way apple does, who knows. but these products feel very bland.

Well, I have to say I expected this to cost more.

I would want to hear what the sound is like but it seems like it could be a good replacement for my OG HomePods while adding some new features, even if the screen is minimally useful.

I am a bit sad that it seems like it isnt using anything the video apple put out about https://machinelearning.apple.com/research/elegnt-expressive...

I would love to see them open up an app store for this, or even if it is apps tied to your phone like the Apple Watch.

Square screen is a no from me. I'm overall tired of the Google ecosystem, and I want to replace our Nest Hubs with something else. I was hoping Apple would come out with something large enough for wife and the kids to use when we're not in the tv room. :(